A handsomely illustrated photographic account by the bestselling author of ' Tommy' of the human experience of war as directly witnessed by British soldiers in the First World War. Richard Holmes one of Britain's best-known military historians (and President of the British Commission of Military History) has selected over 200 photographs taken for the most part by officers & men rather than by official photographers -- mostly unfamiliar ones located in archive collections regimental museums & private sources. The book will deal with the whole of the British Army's experience of the First World War -- Gallipoli Mesopotamia & so on -- & not just on the Western Front. The photographs will be grouped thematically as extended picture essays; topics include the pre-war army & mobilisation of 1914; the contribution made by nurses; medical treatment & the wounded; infantrymen & their weapons; the campaign in Mesopotamia & more. Like ' Tommy' the book is about people rather than things about the human experience of war rather than its strategy or tactics & at least as much about the everyday or commonplace -- a latrine here or a plate of bully beef there -- as about the lofty or portentous. It shows us the dirt beneath the fingernails of history.